Nice pics and video pesan. Thanks for sharing. Looks like ideal Hobie territory. I also have a camera mount at one end of my paddle which seems to give pretty good results. With it, I've also run a thin line from the top of the mast which attaches to a hook on the paddle just behind the camera. You can then hold the paddle out at arms length by the paddle blade for a longer period. Gl;ad you found the camera. A friend of mine had his GoPro stolen by an octopus. He also finally retrieved it and as you can imagine, the footage was amazing.

It is great. Completely waterproof and no hard parts, packing in a very small bag. I connected a Contour Roam camera directly to the line a few meters below the kite and it was shaking too much. I could only salvage a few frames from the video (like the one above). I since built a Picavet rig (http://www.kaper.us/basics/BASICS_picavet.html) but haven't had the chance to try it yet. Wind was not strong enough this past weekend. Can't wait to give it a try on a windy and sunny day!

Did you try launching yours from the kayak?

Slaughter wrote:

Nice pics and video pesan. Thanks for sharing. Looks like ideal Hobie territory. I also have a camera mount at one end of my paddle which seems to give pretty good results. With it, I've also run a thin line from the top of the mast which attaches to a hook on the paddle just behind the camera. You can then hold the paddle out at arms length by the paddle blade for a longer period. Gl;ad you found the camera. A friend of mine had his GoPro stolen by an octopus. He also finally retrieved it and as you can imagine, the footage was amazing.

Thanks Slaughter! Yes, the camera on paddle strategy works great. I thought I would need a larger pole, with with a 170 degree FOV, the paddle length is already reasonable. Then, for really wide shots, I rely on the kite. I hope it will work well with the Picavet rig mentioned above.

Nice idea with the hook from the top of the mast.

Wondering if it is possible to set it up so that we can raise the camera to the very top of the mast by pulling a sheet? It may be hard to stabilize it up there though...

As for the octopus video, that sounds exciting. I hope the camera was large and he didn't have to retrieve it inside the octopus.

Here is my kite rig. The pan, tilt and shutter are operated by radio control, and a video transmitter sends the image from the AV out to a TV on the ground. The white coiled string is for the Picavet (self-leveller), while the square mesh is a "shock-absorber" designed to lessen swinging. Not ideal, as it isn't waterproof!

pesan - if you look through the photos in the 2010 Photo Comp. thread, skymax had some excellent shots where he attached the camera to the top of the mast. The reason I use the line from the top of the mast is that my camera is a Panasonic Lumix and only has about a 100 deg field of view so I need to get the camera a bit further out.